Five articles from around The Times, narrated just for you.
This weekend, listen to a collection of narrated articles from around The New York Times, read aloud by the reporters who wrote them.
‘Pam & Tommy’: A Story of Sex, Crimes and Videotape
Back when 1995 was young, Pamela Anderson and her new husband, Tommy Lee, the drummer for the flashy metal combo Mötley Crüe, were on top of the world. You can’t blame them for wanting to preserve some of their happiest moments — including some very naked, very sexual ones — for posterity, with the help of a Hi8 camcorder. And then, much to the couple’s dismay, the footage got out. And got around.
Those events and their fallout are dramatized in the eight-part scripted series “Pam & Tommy,” a wild, picaresque romp through the nightclubs, palaces and porn dens of mid-90s Hollywood, which debuted Wednesday on Hulu. But the show has more on its mind than celebrity antics or period-perfect riffs on the outlandish trials and tribulations of its lead couple — although it has those, too.
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‘Jeopardy!’ Hasn’t Had a Player Like Amy Schneider
Written and narrated by Shane O’Neill
‘Jeopardy!’ Hasn’t Had a Player Like Amy Schneider
Amy Schneider achieved a 40-day “Jeopardy!” winning streak, putting her behind only Ken Jennings, who won 74 consecutive games in 2004.
She was a virtuoso in terms of accuracy and speed, and her style of play was traditional. Ms. Schneider favored playing a single category vertically from the lowest to highest score rather than playing across the lucrative bottom row, a style popularized by James Holzhauer, who won $2,464,216 during his 32-game streak in 2019. Ms. Schneider didn’t bounce around the board looking for Daily Doubles in the style of previous contestants like Chuck Forrest and Arthur Chu. And her wagers tended to be conservative.
Her strategy paid off. Ms. Schneider left the show as the highest-winning woman in the show’s history. She’s already a legend among both “Jeopardy!” fans and former contestants.
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The Loneliest Mountaineer on Everest
Written and narrated by Michael Levy
The Loneliest Mountaineer on Everest
The tattered remains of an orange tent flap in the wind. A single rope dangles from a 300-foot wall of rock. The sound of crampons squeaking on snow and ice breaks the silence. Only one backpack appears, and it belongs to Jost Kobusch, a German who might best be described as the loneliest Alpine climber in the world right now.
Kobusch is on Mount Everest, in the dead of winter, trying to climb the world’s tallest mountain during a season when almost nobody dares to scale it.
There is no one else to be seen for miles, just Kobusch and a 29,031-foot challenge: to become the first person to climb Everest solo in winter, without supplemental oxygen.
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As Storms Intensify, the Job of TV Weather Person Gets More Serious
Written and narrated by Marc Tracy
As Storms Intensify, the Job of TV Weather Person Gets More Serious
The job of TV weather reporter is changing along with the weather.
For decades, the men and women taking their best educated guess about the weather provided a respite from grim news reports, often playing a comic foil to the anchors. Before Willard Scott became the most prominent weatherman of the 1980s on NBC’s “Today Show,” he had played Ronald McDonald and Bozo the Clown.
But these reporters see themselves as tracking maybe the most serious story of our time. Increasingly destructive weather had already given TV meteorologists a more visceral presence in viewers’ lives. In the last few years, though, they have often gone out of their way to remind viewers explicitly that human-created climate change is a real and disruptive force that has put lives, and the environment, at risk.
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Lori Lightfoot Promised to Change Chicago. Crises Keep Piling Up.
Written by Julie Bosman and Mitch Smith | Narrated by Julie Bosman
Lori Lightfoot Promised to Change Chicago. Crises Keep Piling Up.
In dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, soaring rates of violence and frequent labor battles, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has shown herself to be a blunt orator and an unflinching negotiator. But her lofty campaign promises to “bring in the light,” reduce violence and overhaul governance in America’s third-largest city have repeatedly run up against an overwhelming news cycle, decades of inertia and her uncanny ability to make political enemies.
As a gay, Black woman who grew up in Ohio and had never before held elective office, Ms. Lightfoot stood apart from previous mayors. Her inauguration in 2019 was seen by some as a potential moment of change for the city. But her tenure has been shaped by a series of crises, some within her control, others not.
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The Times’s narrated articles are made by Tally Abecassis, Parin Behrooz, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Jack D’Isidoro, Aaron Esposito, Elena Hecht, Adrienne Hurst, Elisheba Ittoop, Emma Kehlbeck, Marion Lozano, Tanya Pérez, Krish Seenivasan, Margaret H. Willison, Kate Winslett, John Woo and Tiana Young. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Ryan Wegner, Julia Simon and Desiree Ibekwe.
